


Out of reach

by isa_belle



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: ...gay, A little bit of angst, Boris' POV, Fluff, M/M, Theo is A dumbass, They love each other, but we love him anyway, but what else is new, okay?, takes place a few months after the book ends, they're drunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 17:24:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20100895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isa_belle/pseuds/isa_belle
Summary: "We should have stopped drinking hours ago. (Or, if I am being more honest, years ago.) But we didn’t, (and I do not think we will) and now we are sat shoulder to shoulder, on the floor with our legs sprawled in front of us, our backs resting on the bottom of the couch. With hands shaking and hair falling over our eyes, we watch a sad movie on television and it all feels strikingly familiar."





	Out of reach

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished this book and holy shit!!!! It was so good!!!! Obviously I'm not Donna Tartt so what I wrote isn't that good but the characters were so interesting and complex I just had to write them. I hope you like it :)

We should have stopped drinking hours ago. (Or, if I am being more honest, years ago.) But we didn’t, (and I do not think we will) and now we are sat shoulder to shoulder, on the floor with our legs sprawled in front of us, our backs resting on the bottom of the couch. With hands shaking and hair falling over our eyes, we watch a sad movie on television and it all feels strikingly familiar. Like we are fifteen again, and Popchyk is curled up between us and we’re eating shoplifted Nestlé bars and steak until our stomachs ache from food and booming laughter. (But that was years ago, and Snaps is at Potter’s house and we no longer have to steal candy and meat.)

My droopy eyes focus on the flickering screen in front of us and I rest my head on the sofa. There is a boy, with small hands over his eyes and short legs tucked under him, crying about something. His mother died, maybe. Or he’s lost and he can’t figure out how to get home. I do not know, I haven’t been paying much attention to the film. He cradles his face and I think he is like Theo. The thought sends a little pang to my chest, memories of Vegas surfacing. Bad ones, ones of Theo waking up from dreams of explosions and paintings and dead mothers, shooting up beside me and trying to wipe the tears away before I see, but I’ve already seen. (I’ve seen so many of his tears. They are sad for other people, probably. Are worse for me.) So I wrap my arms around him and pull him close to my chest, running fingers through his hair whispering “Do not worry, it is over now, ты в безопасности со мной,” his tears falling onto my pale skin. Ones of him drunk and high and sobbing, desperately trying to wriggle his way out of my grip to jump into the street or off the roof, coughing out words like ‘Just let me go Boris! Let me go!’ then collapsing into my arms, bawling as I gently tug him back to the safety of our room. 

I look over to him, his glasses low in his nose, reflecting the light of the television. His body shakes and at first I think he is crying but no, he is laughing!

I punch him in the shoulder, “asshole!” I say, “why do you laugh? This movie has little boy, crying like ребенок and you laugh? Мудак.” I hit him again. 

His laughter falters a little bit and he turns to face me, eyes dilated and cheeks flush. Nose to nose we sit now, and his face twists into a weird expression. “I dunno, Boris.” He laughs again but it is bitter now, like he does not think it is funny. Then he sighs, “I dunno.”

Theo looks down at his hands, threading is fingers together, and thinking. His face takes on a familiar contemplating look, one seen often during our days in Vegas, eyebrows knit, biting his lip, gray clouding his blue eyes. I poke his shoulder lightly. 

“What is it?” I tilt my head at him in confused curiosity. 

His eyes snap back to mine, he seems a little startled. “Huh?”

I sigh and knock my knuckles lightly against his temple, “what are you thinking?” 

He blinks and I look at him expectantly. 

“It’s just. Well—“ he runs his hands all over his face, “—are you happy?”

I purse my lips, considering the question. Am I happy? I make people happy. I make them laugh and dry their tears and give them love. Does that make me happy? But then—what is happy? I do not know. I maybe could be happy. But I am not sure that it is that simple. I do not think I know how to be happy in the way that he means. Potter's happy is not like mine. Mine is comfortable and unattainable. And I accepted that a long time ago, I no longer care. His is just out of reach, like the books I dangled above him when we were boys and I was still taller than he was. 

“I do not think so.” I say finally, “but am not sad. I think maybe there is gray area, somewhere in between. I am not happy or sad. Just am.”

I do not know how to say it in English and I stumble over my words, try to make my point. 

“Is middle. Medium, maybe. I do not know the word.”

I meet his eyes again, and he is biting his lip. Thinking again. “Are you happy?”

“No.” He says without hesitation. But I already knew the answer when I asked, really. And he knew that too. He pulls his knees to his chest, resting his chin. 

“Why not?” I find myself asking. Because he should be happy. He has friends and money. And unhappy fiancé is gone. He has freedom, too. Can go anywhere he wants. (Finds himself in New York mostly, though. Always New York.) But I know he is not. He is missing something. I do not know what. Maybe he does not either. 

“I don’t think I know how to be happy anymore.” His voice is just above a whisper, but it is heavy and full of a deep sort of sorrow and it makes my heart clench. “I think that when my mom died, something in me broke. And its not fixable. She was like a tether, anchoring me to land buy now she’s gone and I’m just floating in blackness trying to swim back but I can’t because I don’t know which way the shore is.”

His eyes glisten with tears and I instinctively reach out and grab his hand, tracing patterns on his palm with my fingers. He exhales and tried to blink the tears away, stretching his legs back out and turning his gaze to our hands. “you help,” he mumbles, ”you hold a light up from the land, you remind me where it is.” 

He looks back at me. Our faces are close (so close our noses are almost brushing and I can feel the heat of his breath warming my cheeks) “I am sorry you are not happy, Potter.”

His eyes study my face, my cheekbones and scars and lips. Maybe like he is trying to memorize me. “‘S not your fault.” He mutters. I think he leans in a little more. I do not blink. 

“Still.”

He definitely leans in a little more. My stomach drops to my toes. Like I am going to vomit, but I am not. He tilts his head. 

“Boris.” He says it so softly I am nearly sure that all of the air leaves my lungs. I feel chills dance across the skin in my whole body. I open my mouth to say something, anything really. (I am good at talking. It is familiar. Is easy.) But my mouth is dry and for once I do not know what to say.

And then he kisses me and the world melts away and all I can think is  _ Theo Theo Theo _ . His lips are soft and warm and his mouth tastes like vodka and cinnamon and it fits so perfectly against mine it breaks my heart a little. Because I have been here before. Many times has he done this to me—left me breathless and feeling so raw and fiery hot—then forgotten. Or pretended to forget. I could never really tell which.

But when his hands sink into my hair and my arms wrap his waist and I believe this moment might be infinite. I feel as if I have burst out of the blinding gray of mediocrity into the bright light of happy. Because happiness is Theo, for me. Comfortable (like home). But unattainable. So I try to pull away. To spare him (maybe me) the awful afterwards. 

“Potter,” I gasp, but he does not listen. (He is bad listener.)

“Shut up,” He says and pulls my mouth back to his. 

“Potter—“ 

“Boris shut the hell up.” His voice is desperate and his mouth is eager and it sets my skin on fire. And I give, just for a moment, I let my hands wander, gripping his waist and holding his jaw, my lips finding his over and over and over (even though inside I am exploding like one of those stars. A сверхновая звезда)—before he yanks his mouth away and pretends it didn’t happen—I give. (I will always give)

But this needs to stop. He is drunk. Not thinking straight. Will hate himself later (if he remembers) and he is killing me, I think. Every time this happens my heart splits and cracks like the hot pavement of the sidewalk in Vegas. So I put both my hands on his face, gently trace his cheekbones with my thumbs, and pull away. 

“Theo,” I mutter softly, sounding too sad. We are both a little breathless. And his face is red. And he frowns (his hands are still in my hair and maybe I will die in this room.)

“What?”

I cannot look at him anymore. I turn my gaze to anywhere else in the room. (The fan on the ceiling spins like nothing is different.)

“You should not do this.” My voice cracks and I grimace. “It makes me sad.”

He blinks, big blue eyes filling me with rage and something I would rather not name. “Why?”

I exhale roughly, anger spiking at my core. “идиот, what do you mean, ‘why?’ Because you forget. And I remember. Is not fair.”

“Who said I don’t remember?”

“Not you! It is as if it never happened! And if you  _ do _ remember? That is worse. Because then it is meaningless to you!”

“Does it mean something to you?”

“_Does it mean something to me?_” I am louder now, not yelling but almost. And my voice is mocking. “Yah, Potter, of course it does!”

He says nothing. Because of course he does. I try to push him off me but he stops me. 

“Boris I—“ Theo inhales, closing his eyes briefly and then opening them suddenly, looking very determined. “It means something to me too.”

I scoff, “you are drunk, Potter. You are глупый drunk. Get off.”

But he does not move. “No—Boris I swear.” He is trying to make me understand. 

“Then why pretend?” I ask, provoking (I find that it is easier to be angry than to actually let yourself feel) "huh? Why ignore and avoid, waking up like 'morning Boris' as if it was not real?"

He sighs. “I don’t— I don’t know. I just. God 'm so bad at this." he mumbles, "I haven’t really felt anything. For a while." he exhales. "It's like, I’m numb. When my mother died I sort of forgot how to feel things. But it's different with you,” his eyes bounce back and fourth between being in mine and on the rest of the room, like he is struggling to look at me. “I feel  _ so _ much. It’s kind of scary. Because you’re the only one who can do that to me. And I know I’m drunk.” I have stopped trying to pull away from him, instead watching him. “But I mean it, Boris. And I won’t forget and I won't pretend it didn't happen. _I promise_.”

I turn his words over in my mind, replay them over and over until somehow I understand. Though I have never been quick to believe. Promises are weak. Empty words that pour from people's mouths like sand and then blow away with the wind. But this is Theo. I do not think he has ever promised me anything.

“You _promise?_” I sound weak, weaker than I meant it to sound. I would care if it was with anyone other than Theo. 

“Yeah, I do.” He pauses. Then, “so can I k—“

Before he can finish I reach up and press my lips to his. It is quick and different and it makes my stomach swim. “You are stupid, Theo.”

He kisses me again and smiles against my mouth (different than usual smiles. Is less angry at the world, laughing in the face of death, blood more vodka than actual blood. More simple. Like happy.) “I like it when you say my name.”

I laugh, and feel warmth in my chest, bursting out of my mouth, “do you?”

“Yeah.” His cheeks are red and his eyes are wild. 

I kiss him.  “You are stupid.” 

“Fuck you. I hate you.”

“No you don’t. You love me.” And I do not really know if that is true but everything is so bright and happy I do not really care what he says. 

“Yeah,” he kisses me, “I love you”

I exhale with a smile and rest my forehead against his. I do not think I have ever  really been happy because those words from his mouth fill me with so much joy I feel like the sun. “Say it again.”

He smiles, eyes on my lips. “Say what?” He says because he is an asshole. 

“ _ Theo _ .” 

He laughs a breathy laugh and catches my lips with his, hands back in my hair, “I love you.” He says pressing his lips to my jaw and sending shivers down my spine and making me forget how to speak English. 

“я тоже тебя люблю” 

_I love you too. _

And I do. 

**Author's Note:**

> So that was that! Should I write it from Theo's POV too? I'm considering it but I'm not sure. Thank you for reading! If you liked it, please leave a comment and validate me :)


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